After a long day of soul crushingly average work and a long ride home through traffic, Kyle felt a great relief upon seeing his house at the end of the street; “finally, a place to rest and recharge”, he thought to himself. However, when he entered his home his left brow twitched and his arms stiffened as he noticed that three other people were standing in the living room barely acknowledging his arrival.
“Oh, umm... hi” Kyle said softly.
The man who seemed to ignore Kyle’s presence the least was Eric, Kyle’s room-mate. Apparently he had decided to invite a few friends over for the evening and normally this wouldn't be an issue but for some reason, that particular day, Kyle was shaken to the core by this sudden appearance of what appeared to only be a modest social gathering. Nevertheless, his expectation of a gloriously relaxing night quickly fell to pieces.
Attempting to be polite, Kyle tried to conceal his sudden disappointment by stretching a smile across his face. The others didn’t really seem to pay attention so his lack of authenticity mattered little. He then hurried upstairs towards his room; there he lay on his bed with eyes wide open towards the ceiling. He thought about how crippling this feeling felt, he could not find a reason as to why he was flushed with this sudden sensation of exasperation. He would wait there for an hour, unable to ignore every little peak of the obnoxiously loud sentences he heard coming from below.
Not long after, Eric came running upstairs letting out excited cries as he burst into Kyle’s room cheering “The nachos are ready! Come and enjoy the feast!” A chill ran down Kyle’s spine as Eric attempted to scuffle with him. The previously mild feeling that dwelled inside of Kyle’s mind suddenly erupted into acute irritation. “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone!” he cried out while pushing him away. Eric left the room taken aback by Kyle’s dismissal but his confusion quickly turned to eagerness as he joined the others to dive into the meal that he had just prepared. “It’s ok” Kyle thought, “I’ll just grab some food and be right back up here”.
Kyle ventured down to the kitchen, received by his peers with agitation and disarray as he took a plate of home-made nachos from the table. He looked up at the others feeling the immense weight of their presence bearing down on top of him. Every word, every sound, like powerful electric pulses forced their way through his body causing a crippling desire to step away. Looking from side to side, aimlessly attempting to find a way out, Kyle felt cornered in his own home. He finally managed to stumble his way back up the stairs with his plate of nachos without even realizing that he dropped over half of its contents onto the stairwell carpet. The others looked at each other, puzzled by his unusual behavior.
Kyle succeeded in escaping to his room but the relief he was desperately after did not seem to reach him. He climbed onto his bed and let a short wheeze that wasn't too dissimilar to that of a drowning victim gasping for air. He lay there stunned, wondering over and over if this moment would ever end. Fortunately, his exhaustion shortly took him over and he was now sound asleep.
By Frederic Beauchamp, 2016
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